My mom now said that she's not doing ANY of the recommendations

kai2fast

She wants to get rid of the cancer by eating right, exercising, and having as little stress as possible. Her and my dad thinks it's best way since they think doctors are only recommending these options (chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation) because they're "popular" and keeping other options such as living naturally healthy a secret from the masses.

A few days ago my mothers side was hurting and she went to the doctor to check it. The doctor then recommended getting it X-rayed. She then tells the doctor that the X-rays radiation could cause her cancer to grow and possibly spread more. Then doctor then says "well I won't be able to get a closer look at it then".

I asked her, "did you try to look for another doctor who could recommend a safer option"? She told me she didn't do that and instead looked online to see a better method which turns out to her was an ultra sound.

My dad then says that when his blood pressure was extremely high his doctor recommended taking a pill to help him lower it. He decided to not take it and to just eat healthy. Which in turn lowered his blood pressure back to normal. I said "that could obviously work for blood pressure. But for cancer? That's a whole different beast that needs extraordinary methods to take care of according to doctors. ESPECIALLY TNB."

We then go on and on about how there were a few people who survived breast cancer by living healthy and that doctors could lose their jobs if they recommended you to eat certain foods and stuff. I asked my mom that did she at least tell her doctor she was going to do this. And she says "why should I". I don't know? Maybe so that they could tell you if you're making the right decision or not... *sigh*

I...I don't know guys. I feel this is a very unsafe option to take. I mean yes, there is a possibility that people have survived cancer through eating healthy. But then here's the question. What type of cancer was it? How aggressive was it? What was the size? What was the stage? Etc. etc....

Last month my mother was diagnosed with Stage IIa TN Breast cancer with a sizable 2.8 centimeter lump. How does she know that EVERYTHING is going to be fine by doing something this simple? Can simply eating the right foods really get rid of THIS type of cancer? I really don't know...

Any advice on this matter would much be appreciated. Thank you.

VL22

kai2fast - I’m so sorry - this must be very stressful for you. No, eating healthy will not get rid of cancer. Exercise will not. The only way to get rid of the cancer in her breast is to get it surgically removed. Some get chemo first and then surgery.

Yes, TN can be aggressive. There is a thread on here for alternative options for cancer, which I don’t read. Obviously, people opt out of chemo and radiation for various reasons. However, surgery would seem like a must.

Obviously, for many, things such as high blood pressure can be controlled by diet and exercise. Your memail m’a cancer cannot. After getting rid of it, healthy living may help prevent a recurrence.

Best of luck to you..

Connie1230

TNBC can be so aggressive. When I had my biopsy, it was estimated to be 2mm. When I had the lumpectomy just 2weeks later, it was 5 mm. The surgeon, after looking at the original films etc., estimated that it really did grow that quickly. I am not going to some rinky dink joint. I am going to Mayo Clinic. I would strongly encourage your mother to reconsider. For me, it was a stroke of luck that my mammo had been scheduled at just the right time. I should have had it several months earlier but my dr. Closed her practice when SHE got aggressive breast cancer and she went to MD Anderson for several months for treatment. I was just too lazy to take care of finding a new dr. quickly.

Lula73

Well you are in a tough spot. I'm so sorry you're having to deal with it. At the end of the day, this really is your mom's decision. The role you can play that will likely be the most helpful is one of helping her make an educated decision. Perhaps you two together research alternative lifestyle treatments as well as conventional treatments. Many of us combine the two in one form or another.

Cancer and high blood pressure are two VERY different things. Perhaps starting with the information & examples you've given that your parents have had experience with health conditions that are highly influenced by lifestyle (high blood pressure). You eat high sodium diet and/or have low level of physical activity and blood pressure goes up. You change to a lower sodium diet and/or increase physical activity and blood pressure goes down. Cholesterol and type 2 diabetes are two other common conditions that are heavily influenced by lifestyle and diet. However, in all 3 cases we also have people who have high blood pressure, high cholesterol and/or high blood sugar because of their genetics. Diet and lifestyle changes can help but do not completely resolve the condition. That's when modern day medicines come into play. Cancer is on this end of the spectrum. Eating healthy is important and can help make you feel better but it will not eliminate the cancer cells or reverse it. In some ways it helps the cancer cells because they are also being fueled by that healthy eating. It wasn't unhealthy eating that started the cancer in the first place.

Perhaps understanding how cancer is different will help. Unlike diet controlled blood pressure, cancer is a cluster of cells that have an error in their DNA that occurred during normal cell replication. These cells will also replicate and these new cells will replicate too and so on. All of these replicated cells have the error and eventually a tumor forms. Overtime the tumor becomes bigger and some of the cells migrate to other areas of the body through the lymph system and/or the bloodstream causing the cancer to spread. If the replication continues unchecked, the cells with the error take over and start to shut down other organ systems in the body. Some cancers are slow growing while others are fast growing (depends on how quickly those cells are replicating). Triple negative is one of the very aggressive fast growing breast cancers.

Treatments fit in based on the type of cancer, and the stage or how far it has progressed/spread. Surgery helps by removing the largest clusters of cells /tumor(s) which are the largest group(s) of replicators. Chemo helps by either shrinking the large tumors to a size that can be removed and/or killing the cells with the DNA error. some healthy cells are also affected but primarily it's the unhealthy ones affected. Chemo goes throughout the whole body and attacks the cancer wherever it is. Sometimes the cell replication is faster than the chemo can work and the chemo may just slow things down. Radiation works 2 ways: as your mom indicated radiation can be bad-if used without regard to established safety guidelines or in the case of a nuclear accident. It does not spread the cancer though. The amount of radiation used in X-rays or ct scans is very low and does not show significant increased risk of cancer unless you're getting them done every single day for years. The other thing we know about radiation is that when it's used in controlled ways it can quite effectively kill those cancer cells. Unlike chemo, radiation is targeted to a specific area; typically where we know the cancer is/was. When all 3 ways of treating cancer are used together the cancer is usually an aggressive fast growing one and/or the cancer has spread beyond where it started. Using all 3 treatments in these cases gives the best chance of beating the cancer and/or prolonging a patient's life.

So while healthier eating can help your mom in many ways while fighting cancer (helping keep her strength up, well hydrated, etc), it does not fight established cancer on its own unfortunately.

I've been down the cancer road 4 times now (4 different kinds) and it's never easy. But I would do the recommended treatments over again in a heartbeat because of what doing them has allowed me to experience that I wouldn't have gotten to otherwise: experiencing romantic love and getting married, being a mom and helping my children experience the world and help with their dreams, seeing my 2 beautiful grandchildren are chief among those things that never would have happened.

In the end though it is your mom's decision. An educated decision is better than an uneducated one though and that's where you can help. I wish you luck and will keep you all in my thoughts.

NinjaMeow

Google this....there was a woman who tried to heal her bc naturally and posted all over YouTube. She claimed success but recently she passed. That being said even with chemo things sometimes do not work out but we go on the best decision/research possible. TNBC is a different animal and studies have shown that chemo is very effective. There are no real good choices however I will take my oncologist who went to extensive schooling and many years of medical experience over theories. At the end of the day I would rather pass knowing that I did western med first then followed up with holistic post treatment than the reverse. Ultimately her decision but focus on facts

KBeee

I would suggest you ask your mom to compromise. Do surgery and then her natural methods. There is a chance that surgery alone is curative. Realistically, triple negative is extremely aggressive, so if she chooses to do nothing, it may spread quickly. Even with surgery alone, there is a good chance it will spread, since chemotherapy is important for triple negative. Another option is to recommend she use her alternative treatments with the standard therapies and do both, understanding that some may counteract some of the chemo benefits. I understand that she thinks the radiation will cause cancer, but I would argue that she needs to fight the cancer she has now, before worrying about preventing one she may never get.

At the end of the day, it is her decision. My mom and my aunt were both diagnosed with cancer 20+ years ago. My mom chose standard therapies, and my aunt chose alternative therapies. My mom survived and my aunt did not. That's not to say that my aunt would have survived standard therapies; different people, different cancers. It did change my perception and influenced me to choose to be aggressive. Now that my standard treatments are done, I do supplement my letrozole with tumeric to try to get the anti-inflammation benefits. Hopefully she can strike a balance as well. All you can do is give her information, and then whatever decision she makes, respect it, and don't say "I told you so" regardless of outcome.